A Brighter Grey
by fleurofthecourt
Summary: Fill for kink-meme prompt: I just think Monroe is a great hugger. One day Nick just has enough of everything/just has a hard day/whatever, and he goes to Monroe's and HUGS HIM. Just hugging! I don't mind if you want to put them in a relationship, but no leading to anything sexy please.


The thick aroma of simmering tomato sauce accosted Nick as he let himself into the house, but it barely registered. He stared sullenly and unseeingly at the hardwood floor and welcome mat as he kicked off his shoes and hung his jacket up. He felt like he just couldn't do this anymore.

The lengths that people would go to for, well, anything, he couldn't even begin to comprehend. When he'd chosen his profession, he'd known there would be days when he questioned everything about his faith in humanity. He'd had more than a few of them before he'd even learned he was a Grimm. Then after, well, the Wesen community just had a certain knack for destroying social mores.

But the deeper he delved into the case he was currently working, the more his resolve weakened.

After a young boy had been decapitated, the head had been sewn back on, but not particularly securely. He tried not to cringe when he thought about this by itself, but it only became worse. The boy's sister had been the one who had found him, and thinking there was nothing wrong, had knocked his head off his shoulders. Initially, she had thought she'd done it herself.

He'd had to ask her about it.

Then although the thread that was used had not returned any positive DNA to support their theory, Hank and Nick heavily suspected the boy's stepmother. A fact for which the little girl's unwavering affection for the woman only made worse.

"Hey Nick, can you come in here? I need to borrow your taste buds," Monroe shouted from the kitchen.

"What?" Nick said, trying to shake himself out of what was bound to be a continuous downward spiral. "Oh, yeah. Be there in a minute."

Nick walked into the kitchen and saw Monroe, wearing an apron covered in tiny orange and red spots, staring intently into a large bowl of sauce as he stirred. He turned and grinned at Nick as he slid a spoonful of sauce into his mouth.

"Too spicy? Not spicy enough?" Monroe asked.

Nick choked back the sauce with a grimace- like everything else in his day, it wasn't quite right.

"Was it really that bad?" Monroe asked as he saw Nick's facial expression and mistakenly took it purely as a sign against his cooking.

"No, well, it could use some more salt, maybe. But it's just..." Nick started, but he didn't really know how to end his sentence. He supposed, ultimately, it was just that he didn't understand the world he lived in sometimes. He glanced back up at the stove where Monroe was sprinkling more salt into the sauce, watching him tentatively. The mundane normalness of it and the fact that Monroe was just there helped somehow.

Without really thinking about it, he leaned forward, with a heavy sigh, and rested his head against Monroe's collarbone. Monroe dropped the spoon in surprise. As it clattered to the ground, Monroe wordlessly wrapped his arms around him and rubbed his hands up and down his back in small soothing circles. He moved his arms so they were wrapped around Monroe's back and gripped him tightly.

"Are you alright?" Monroe asked. Nick shook his head for a moment without moving it away, knowing Monroe would feel the motion.

Monroe stopped rubbing his back and set his hands firmly on his shoulders,"I'm guessing you still haven't pinned the evil stepmother for her wicked crimes, huh? You will, you know."

"I know we will, Monroe. That's not the point," Nick said. He hesitated for a moment as he turned his head to the side and stared at the clock over the stove, "Some days, I just wish I didn't do what I do. That I wasn't what I am. I told you the woman was wesen, didn't I? The kid probably was too."

"It doesn't matter, Nick. You know if it wasn't this, it'd be something else," Monroe said. Nick loosened his grip slightly and looked up into Monroe's eyes and gave him a wry smile. It was true; there would always, always be something else. It was his life's grim calling.

Although he thought, perhaps, that the plain, ugly truth of it should do the opposite, Monroe's blunt acknowledgement made him feel strangely better.

"Yeah, it would. Your sauce is about to boil over, for example," Nick said. He grinned warmly as Monroe pushed him aside as he reached for the stove.

"If dinner is burnt, it's your fault," Monroe said. "My day hasn't exactly been peachy either. I had to explain to this guy that I couldn't, you know, make a cuckoo clock with a soprano. It'd destroy the integrity of the whole thing."

Nick didn't know; he didn't know at all. But he smiled to himself as he let Monroe ramble on about it while he fished out another pot to boil the spaghetti in. At least it seemed at the moment that the two of them were going to have a pleasant enough evening.

He reflected briefly that Monroe hadn't, for once, offered him the ridiculous prospect of a bright side, but he supposed he didn't really need to. Monroe was his bright side.

* * *

A/N: The case is based off the fairy tale The Juniper Tree , which is also known by My Mother Slew Me; My Father Ate Me

Aren't fairy tales just something?


End file.
